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Visualizing Spelling Choices: Strategies For Spelling Success

Thursday, August 31, 2017

It's been a busy summer in the world of Orton-Gillingham this summer! I am always seeking new books, materials and lesson ideas for using the Orton-Gillingham approach, and today I am back to share some wonderful teaching tips for teaching spelling strategies.

I apologize for the summer hiatus from blogging, but things are picking back up for sure! If you receive my weekly emails, you probably have a pretty good idea about what I've been up to and what I have planned. So without further delay, Sarah from Magic Moments Tutoring is going to share some absolutely FABULOUS and PRACTICAL tips that you can implement in your Orton-Gillingham lessons or other reading interventions right away. Please feel free to comment or ask questions at the end of the post. Thank you, Sarah for writing such a valuable post for both me and my readers! :)

Visualizing Spelling Choices

Sometimes it seems that the more an O.G. student learns, the harder spelling
becomes! When a student only knows a few syllable types, their options for
spelling a certain sound are pretty limited and can be figured out on the basis
of what type of syllable they hear. It isn’t too long however, before the
spelling choices start stacking up and helpful spelling generalizations are
only half the story. Students that are proficient at spelling words like tack
and take
and play
may run into problems when writing maid, rein and prey.

While we can teach students that certain spellings are used at the beginning or
middle of words and others at the end, there are still plenty of tricky choices
such as whether to use a-e or ai, oa or o-e? Long e has a dizzying number of possibilities. Spelling that
is phonetically correct, but not orthographically correct is still a problem
for students in the classroom.

I find that it is helpful to introduce students to the frequency of different
spelling patterns. The oe spelling is uncommon and should not be a student’s go-to
answer for spelling the long o sound. Using a simple visual graph of frequency
of use is a great first step. This graph can easily be made interactive and
hands-on by using Velcro, or you can build this with the student, adding
spellings as they are introduced.

As new phonograms and spelling generalizations are introduced, Ifind it is helpful to incorporate specific lessons focusing on spelling
choices. After helping students to make wise choices using their knowledge of
spelling generalizations and frequency, it seems to be most helpful to develop
a repertoire of high use words that they know will fit a specific spelling
pattern. Of course, this happens through many exposures to reading and writing
these words, but we can also use the student’s imagination, visualization
skills and artistic abilities to help.

How to Create Picture Stories for Spelling Choices

1.Generate a list of common words using a specific
spelling pattern in advance.

2.Read through the list with your student,
clarifying words that may have homophones or multiple meanings.

3.Invite your student to add additional words to
the list.

4.Challenge your student to create a picture story
using only words on the list and as many of them as possible. They can add
words, but only if they follow the correct spelling pattern. This can be as
simple as a quick sketch or an elaborate and colorful poster. Encourage them to
be silly and creative to make it more fun.

5.Have your student share their picture story.

6.If you see opportunities for including more
words, offer suggestions.

7.Record the words contained in the story
somewhere on the drawing.

8.Revisit this picture often over the course of
several lessons as your student becomes more comfortable and is able to
visualize their picture and describe it using the target words without it in
front of them.

9.Display or keep in a student’s personal folder
for reference.

The great thing about this activity is that the students
love it! They will frequently ask when we can do it again after completing one
spelling choice picture story. It is multisensory using the kinesthetic drawing
activity, auditory for telling the story and visual for looking at the picture
and visualizing it later on. It is also easy to adapt to small group or whole
class instruction either by working in teams to complete posters or creating
individual pictures from a brainstormed shared word list.

This activity is
easily adapted to fit your individual schedule by making it as simple as a time
limited sketch (2 minutes for thinking and 3 for sketching seems to work well)
or as elaborate as a take home family project. It is easily adapted to
different ages by incorporating more complex vocabulary. Finally, it allows
many students with dyslexia to utilize some of their creative strengths.

1 comment:

My name is Emily. I am a mom of four, and an educator who loves creating and blogging about all things literacy! As an Orton-Gillingham instructor, I seek to find and create resources to assist children with dyslexia. Thank you for stopping by my blog today!